Selfridges - the mark up….who shops there?

[Hels20]

Now - I used to love Selfridges. Shopped there a lot in my 20s and still love to
pop in there for make up etc and browse their clothes. Today, I needed to buy some shoes as I have recently developed arthritis and wanted some lower heels. Found a pair that did the job and they were £550! A lot of money! I then went on to a luxury fashion site and found they were being sold for £450 on the site AND they were also offering 20% off. So in total - a nearly £190 difference. I really couldn’t believe it….

maybe it was just a one off - but I thought (apart from in sale times) that designer goods had a set price - ie it didn’t matter where you got them from. It seems I was wrong. Anyone else got any similar experience?

Sorry, Harrods food Hall.

It's just like some weird smelly noisy black hole

Perfect description.

There’s a Selfridges in my local city that I used to almost live in, but now visit once or twice a year - to try on sunglasses, maybe!

But I shop for clothes online - and yes, of course, different sites will have the same item at different prices. I find I have to be on my toes and cross check to ensure I’m getting the best price. That might not be the cheapest - delivery schedules, returns policies, ethics, etc, all influence which site I decide to give my money to.

I see Selfridge's in the same way as a museum or showroom.

The staff are quite snooty but I can see why they got annoyed with me when I obviously wasn't going to buy anything.

The Great Department Stores of London tend to be an anachronism to me. I prefer the internet or individual shops.

I loved that section - it was on the ground floor at the back of the shop and I passed many a lunch hour there in the early 00s when I worked round the corner.

God I loved Selfridges then - I do a pass through the designer sections just to see what they had (and whether I’d seen it in Vogue or Marie Claire), then go to the youth section and then head out via the Food Hall.

Yes, i remember that - still have a Kookai dress i got there in 1995/6. It was ground floor on the right hand side of the building - was the original "Miss Selfridge" i think?

In the late 70s, I sometimes met my father in the cafe there. It was busy but you could get a really good hot salt beef sandwich and the coffee was good in an era before coffee shops (where largely the coffee isn't good)

When I was a child I can remember my Grannie saying Selfridges was gauche and pitched for north London.

Coming to London as an adult in the early 80s it seemed dated and chaotic. In the early 90s I whizzed in to have a squint at their bridal section and it was awful - scant in fact.

In my youth I much preferred Liberty, Dickens & Jones and Harvey Nicks for clothes; Harrods and JL for furniture.

I think I ventured into Selfridges in the mid 2000s. It was awful - stuffed with bling for WAGs and foreign money. I haven't set foot in there since but neither have I bothered with Harrods much since Fayed took over and rescinded a free trip to the bogs, otherwise £1, for account holders.

The department stores in London are fading. Where once we had: DH Evans, Dickens & Jones, Bourne & Hollingsworth (always a bit crap), Swann & Edgar, Simpsons, Marshall & Snelgrove we now have the Trocadero Centre, and largely fast food and crud. It's an entirely different landscape. Oxford Street is not a place I wish to venture. If I have to be in the West End, I get off it asap and am inclined to use the back entrance to the M&S Pantheon, venture to Liberty and walk down Regent Street to Piccadilly.

Much of Selfridges problem is that Oxford Street has lost its lure.

Some of the prices at ludicrous (and the styles too frankly).

But watches tend to be fixed at RRP and the Air Jordan's are well priced (and unlike Niketown, with good availability). I also like the food hall and restaurants.

Selfridges and other physical retail cannot compete with websites because they have to pay for the staff and the real estate upkeep that websites do not need.

I do not particularly love Selfridges specifically, and my recent shopping experience there was the first time I ever made a major purchase there, but I do very much appreciate that physical retail in general still exists. For some purchases, seeing and holding the item before purchase makes it easier to make the right choice. Yes it is also possible to buy online and then return unwanted items, but it is a faff to do, and many of the returned items also get trashed because that is easier than restocking.

For some product categories, Selfridges has a good quality selection. I recently needed to purchase new fine china. Tried various places for sampling, some of which had no physical footprint so I had to order online, be at home to receive delivery, and then repack everything that I was not going to keep and wait another day at home for parcel collection, etc. I also need to track refunds for all of the online ones. With Selfridges, they packed up for me each of the sample items and I was able to just take them home from their physical store and compare against the samples from elsewhere. For what I wanted to return, I brought it back and received an immediate refund.

I did end up buying primarily from Selfridges, and it was a good experience. That said, I would not have bought from them at full price. The selection I preferred was being offered on sale at 25% off RRP and that was essential for my decision.

These people do not whore themselves on websites, not even look at prices

Whore themselves on websites 😂

So instead they traipse around department stores and choose from what’s left from the range the store buyer selected? No thanks.

I know what you mean. But - that said - my DD wanted some boots for Christmas. I wanted her to try them on. There was a queue outside the actual shop and no way am I standing outside in the cold to queue to spend money on some overpriced luxury item. Selfridges had them, the sales lady was charming and really helpful, found several slightly different pairs for my DD to try and just generally made it a pleasant experience for her. And while, yes, they would have been cheaper on the brand website, they were out of stock online. So I felt it was a winner there, really. We had a nice time, got what we wanted and came away confident that she’d chosen well.

Not a regular visitor to Selfridges as tend to frequent Kings Rd more. Peter Jones is a lovely experience and my local department store in Wimbledon is a delight. I don’t believe the department store is dead at all, just needs to up its game.

I think the loss of Debenhams and House of Fraser and the financial problems that John Lewis and Selfridges have show that the department store is not exactly thriving. I tend to find if I'm after something specific, I want choice and would go to specific product retailer e.g for a mattress or a TV.

PP mentioned Ely's in Wimbledon which also has sister branches in Brixton and Holloway and they seem to be managing to stock things people want at prices people will pay, which after all is what its all about.

As for Selfridges on Oxford Street it's scale has always made me feel a bit overwhelmed, and I'm a seasoned shopper. These days it's bordering on grotesque. The make up people look like it's Halloween. But maybe I just got old.

Similar to Harrods. Packed with tourists wanting some little trinket and a Harrods shopping bag OR very rich foreign nationals who don’t need to shop around to make savings.

Beauty and perfume is a complete rip-off in Selfridges & Harrods. I haven’t been into either in 20 years!

@WimpoleHat - that’s a great story. And actually I probably would have bought the shoes if there had been a £30
or £40 or maybe even £50 price difference as I appreciated the service and it was easy. But nearly £200! I couldn’t quite believe it. It makes me sad - because I too appreciate the benefits of shopping in bricks and mortar rather than online. Oxford Street and then Argylle St with Dickins and Jones and Liberty - Oxford St in the late 1990s was great. Oxford Street is now just a plethora of money laundering sweet and cheap luggage shops….

I do still shop on Oxford Street. The stretch between Bond Street and Oxford Circus has a Uniqlo, John Lewis and Massimo Dutti. It's very easy. I am 'in and out' though rather than lingering there and I probably use it because it's convenient more than anything; I'm about 10mins away on the tube and so it's my closest shopping area.

Westfield Stratford is a whole other story...

I endorse what a previous poster has said about Elys in Wimbledon. It captures what a department store is and needs to be.

@Hels20 I'd have said the area you describe was great in the 70s/80s and pestering out in the 90s.

I used to spend hours and hours in Selfridges in the late 90s, early 2000s.
Their windows were amazing back then and it felt younger and more fun than other London department stores.
Back then, tourists flocked to Harrods and out of towners to Harvey Nicks to see someone from telly in the bar. Nesters and wedding listers when to JL and old ladies went to Liberty.
Selfridges was for young people.
The makeup hall was fab.
Sales, especially shoes , incredible.
The hall off the Duke Street Entrance had lots of small younger brand concessions, and there were pop ups like a piercing place and nail bars.
Now sadly, Primark is the main draw for Oxford Street.

This is just online shopping in a nutshell and why high street shops are closing down. I really do think more storefront shops should employ people to create a computer system that routinely checks online for stock being sold over 20% cheaper online at any given time. They need to see the competition while recognising people still want to try things on. Otherwise people try things on in store and buy online.

Like pps I absolutely loved Selfridges in the noughties, they had a brilliant Top Shop concession near the Duke Street entrance and lots of other great brands. Then the third floor for Joseph etc in the sales. Finished with a salt beef sandwich for about £10. I was in my early thirties at the time, working in a creative industry and knew it like the back of my hand. I haven't been for years now, but the last time I went I thought it was just like an airport shopping lounge.

John Lewis used to do a similar thing, and refund you the difference once they had proof it was cheaper elsewhere. Bit of a clunky system but it worked for me more than once.
Our nearest JL is a shadow of its former self now sadly.

I actually really like purchasing my skin care in Harrods (although it's out of my way now). They always have a gift with purchase (if it is not a current promotion they've always put a version together for me). Last time I bought my day cream and toner I was given a cute make up bag, a promotional size night cream and serum (about 25-30ml and 15ml so bigger than samples), and about 12-15 samples of various skin care products (hand cream, scrub, cleanser, etc.) - I think he just put one if everything from his drawer into the bag.

In a different upper end department store I purchased 3 Jo Malone fragrances when they didn't have a gift with purchase on, and received a travel candle, 2 x 9ml perfumes, a travel size soap, 6 little 'pouch' samples of hand creams and hand wash, and one of every fragrance in the little vials (15 or so?) all put into a cute duster bag. The most I ever get in a stand alone Jo Malone is 2-3 samples unless they have a specific promotion on.

I actually like Selfridge’s, mainly for Me and Em and Zadig and Voltaire. I’ve also been to Elys in Wimbledon and it was such a lovely experience. It’s not super flashy but has everything you could want.